APPENDIX – A

ORTHOTROPIC PLATE THEORY

The orthotropic plate approach has two simplifying assumptions viz., the stiffeners are
uniformly spaced over the plate and the normal stresses in the stiffened plate are some average
of plate stress and stiffener stress (Timoshenko, 1959). A thin orthotropic plate subjected to
uniform lateral load is shown in Figure A1. The plate is perfectly elastic, continuous,
homogeneous, obeys Hooke’s law and its elastic properties in orthogonal directions x and y,
differ.

Figure A1. Orthotropic rectangular plate under uniform lateral load.

Based on the usual assumptions in the theory of bending of thin plates, the governing
equation for displacement w of the plate in the z direction is available (Troitsky, 1976) as
follows.

D + 2H +D = q(x, y) (A1)

where,

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 D = (A2 a)

D = (A2 b)

The effective torsional rigidity is given by equation A3 as,

2H = D ν + D ν + 4D (A3)

where,

D = (A4)

For the equivalent OPM, H and Gxy are given by the following expressions,

H= D D and G = (A5)
( )

Following Betti’s reciprocal theorem,

Dx.νy = Dy.νx (A6)

Dx.νz = Dz.νx (A7)

Besides,

ν = ν ν

ν = √ν ν (A8)

ν = ν ν

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 APPENDIX – B

ANALYTICAL SOLUTION FOR BENDING OF ORTHOTROPIC PLATE

Bao et al. (1997) has presented an analytical solution for bending of flat,
rectangular, orthotropic thin plate shown in Figure A1. The material orthotropy has been
characterized by two non-dimensional parameters, defined as

λ= and η = (B1)

and the modified aspect ratio for the orthotropic plate as

R=λ1⁄4 a⁄b (B2)

The exact solution for the maximum deflection of the plate with all edges simply
supported under uniform lateral load has been given by
∞ ∞
Δ 16.R4 (-1)(m+n+2)/2
= 6 .
Δ0 π Dmn
m=1,3,….. n=1,3,….

(B3)

where,

qb4
Δ0 is a reference deflection, Δ0 = . (B4)
D

Dmn = m4 +2η(mnR)2 + (nR)4

The maximum in-plane stress σx occurs at the centre of the plate. For a plate with -1<
η < 1, the maximum in-plane stress σx has been given by

σ t 3ν 24 (−1)
= + x
qb 4 π λλ λ m ϕ
, ,……

√λ − ν η sinh sin − 2ν λ λ cosh cos (B5)

where,

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